The present invention relates to skin diving equipment, and more particularly, to a weight belt which a diver can quickly release and swing free and clear of the diver's legs and gear with one hand in case of an emergency.
A skin diver wears a weight belt to offset the positive buoyancy of the body and the wet suit to thereby facilitate descent. In an emergency, such as an air supply failure, it is imperative for a diver to be able to get to the surface in a short amount of time. Therefore, it is desirable to have a weight belt which can be quickly discarded. However, it is important that the weight belt not disconnect inadvertently since the diver could ascend in an uncontrolled manner which could result in an air embolism and death.
If the weight belt is to be quickly released, it should have some mechanism for enabling the diver to readily distinguish its release strap from all others. This is important because diving masks, head gear and front flotation vests usually restrict the diver's ability to view his or her waist area. Furthermore, heavy gloves often make it difficult to tell one strap or buckle from another. Divers may wear a tank harness buckle, a flotation harness buckle and other buckles.
The most commonly used diver's weight belt buckle is the cam buckle available in stainless steel or plastic. This type of buckle has several shortcomings. The end of the webbing must be threaded through the buckle. This is often difficult to do when the diver has heavy gloves on and the view of his or her waist is obstructed by the mask or other diving gear. In this type of belt, if the end of the webbing becomes frayed, it can be very difficult to feed the webbing underneath the cam. It is considered good safety practice for a diver to put on the weight belt last in order to insure that it can be readily removed and is not trapped by another piece of gear. Because the conventional cam buckle is difficult to put on, some divers are inclined to violate this rule. It is also very difficult to re-thread a cam type weight belt underwater.
On older designs of the cam type weight belt buckle, it was possible to feed the webbing partially underneath the buckle itself so that the cam was just barely engaged and the weight belt could be inadvertently lost. If the cam is rotated more than twenty degrees, for example, the belt can release. Two hands are required to loosen, tighten and release in a controlled fashion the cam type of buckle. This type of buckle can be released using one hand, but the diver then has little control over the manner in which the belt drops. It is thus possible for the weight belt to become lodged, for example, on a knife worn on the diver's ankle. The cam type weight belt buckle can become hooked on rocks, kelp or lines, and be accidentally released.
By virtue of its geometry, the conventional cam type weight belt buckle is prone to damage. The metal versions often get bent. The pin that retains the cam may become damaged or even lost. Because of its construction, a high level of stress is concentrated on the pivot point. In plastic versions of the cam type weight belt buckle, this can lead to failure or contribute to breakage.
Cam type weight belt buckles can jam upon release where a long section of the webbing has been threaded through the buckle. This jamming results by a cocking action of the webbing in the buckle. In addition, the cam type buckle has a tendency to slip if a large number of weights are used as in the case of dry suit diving.
The only other type of diver's weight belt buckle that is widely utilized in the United States is a bent wire buckle, that is mated with a heavy rubber belt. While this type of weight belt solves some of the problems associated with the cam type buckle, the wire buckle is not easily adjusted and the rubber strap is found to be undesirable by many divers. The bent wire buckle weight belt cannot be readily released using only one hand.